why dave bergman is neat

The Roman Catholic church in England and Wales sought to play down reports last night that Pope Benedict XVI was planning to visit Britain next year. It would be only the second time that a pope has come to the UK since Henry VIII broke with Rome to set up the Church of England in 1534.

A week ago the Catholic church released a statement announcing that it had formally invited the 78-year-old German pontiff to visit. "It is too soon to say either in what that visit might consist, or whether it would be feasible, given the Pope's commitments and the many invitations he has already received from across the world," it said.


"But the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, is keen that the Pope be aware of how delighted the British people would be should he feel able to accept.


"It is very unlikely that any papal visit would coincide with the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit in May 1982."

So says Yahoo. Strange. Here's the lead to the article:

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German farmer confessed to feeding the corpse of an elderly family friend to his pigs and then stealing from his bank account, police said Monday.

Police ruled out murder and the 29-year-old farmer has been charged with improper burial and fraud.

The elderly friend died in the farmer's yard in February 2005 and the farmer, through his mother, had power-of-attorney giving him access to the dead man's bank account and pension.

The farmer initially put the corpse in a deep freezer, police in the German town of Frizlar-Haddamar said, and told curious locals the old man was in a nursing home.

In other news, coffee may lead to heart problems for slow-metabolizers:

Among slow-metabolizers, those who drank two or more cups of coffee daily were at least 36 percent more likely to have a nonfatal heart attack than those who drank little or no coffee. Even higher risks were found for younger slow metabolizers — those under 50. They were up to four times more likely to have a heart attack than slow metabolizers in their age group who drank little or no coffee.

Well, at least the heart attacks are nonfatal. Also, if anyone wants to look at the article and tell me why that guy in the picture is 'sipping' his coffee in such an odd manner, I'd appreciate it.

In other news, the song 'History of Lovers' by Iron and Wine/Calexico is sweet.

I always enjoyed watching him play.

R.I.P.

Say it ain't so, Yanni!

Does anyone know how I can convert digital pictures of the pages of a book into PDFs?

Mark has a new blog on which you can see, among other things, photographs of his wounded left buttock. Check it out.